5.4 PTR: Proving Grounds Preview

Blizzard just posted a blog introducing an exciting feature coming in Patch 5.4--Proving Grounds. In Proving Grounds, players can try out new roles in a safe environment (no PuGs being angry you failed at something new), or push their limits on high-difficulty settings.

Your gear will be scaled down so it's purely about skill, and depending on the role you choose, you'll be faced with combat mechanics similar to what's in a dungeon, with both friendly NPCs assisting you as well as vendors, soulwells, reforgers, and more inside! You don't even have to worry about durability when dying.

For completing various challenges, you'll be awarded achievements on Bronze, Silver, and Gold difficulty. An Endless Wave difficulty setting is in place for those who want competitive scores (like ).

Proving Grounds are now testable on the PTR! Simply go to the Temple of the White Tiger to queue up.

Click the cut to read Blizzard's preview!

Nethaera

There comes a time in any healer, tank, or damage dealer’s life when they decide to take their collaborative skills and abilities to the next level. When that time comes, the Proving Grounds will be waiting. Set within the Temple of the White Tiger, this new feature will provide a repeatable solo Scenario where level 90 players can test their mettle or try out different roles in a safe, controlled environment.

Getting In

To get started, you’ll need to talk with an NPC in the Temple of the White Tiger in Kun-Lai Summit or class trainer, who'll grant you entrance to the instance. Upon entering the Proving Grounds, your gear will be scaled down much like it is in Challenge Modes. Depending on the role you choose, you may not have to go it alone. (Then again, you just might. Aren’t you brave?)

Choose Your Role

Within the Proving Grounds, much like in any dungeon, you’ll be able to choose the role of tank, DPS, or healer. Once you’ve decided, you’ll be faced with a series of challenges based on the kinds of combat mechanics that role would encounter in a dungeon.

Tank: You will be tasked with protecting an NPC from oncoming waves of enemies, which will test your tanking skills in various ways. Fear not, though a friendly NPC will assist, by healing you, and damaging the enemies.

Damage: Sometimes you just have to go it alone. You'll melt the usual faces, while handling a variety of mechanics including interrupting heals, chasing down runners, timing cooldowns, avoiding harmful mechanics, and more.

Healer: Four NPCs will join you to form a full party. It will take a special healing touch to keep your friendsalive, as you work together to face the challenges of attacking enemies.

Choose Your own Adventure

Proving Grounds will be available in four different modes: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless. Each mode allows you the opportunity to test your mettle and learn a bit more about your role by putting you in the thick of a grouping experience. You’ll have to beat each one (beginning with Bronze) to take on the next mode. Once you’ve beaten Gold, you’ll unlock Endless and be truly prepared to astound and amaze your friends with your prowess.

In Endless, you’ll push yourself to the limits and see just how long you can survive as each wave of foes becomes more and more difficult to withstand. The longer you survive Endless, the higher your score, and the system will track your progress so you can see just how well you’ve done.

Choose to Endure

You’ll be able to reenter the Proving Grounds as much as you want as you work to improve your skills earn Achievements, and claim some bragging rights when you survive longer than any of your friends. It’s just a quick chat with the NPC, and you're quickly back in action.

You won’t need to worry about death or taking durability damage. Food and flasks will last their full duration, but leave your potions at home – you won’t be able to use them here. You’ll also have access to various amenities within the Proving Ground such as Vendors, Soulwells, repairs, and Reforgers.

Now that you know what’s in store, sharpen those blades, enchant that new robe, and get ready to go boldly into the Proving Grounds.

评论

评论来自 Zalmon

on 2013-07-15T11:13:50-05:00

Honestly, this excites me. I don't know if it will make EVERY experience in a group with a tank or healer better now, but hopefully this will cut down on tanks not understanding their abilities and help healers know how to be efficient with their heals and their mana... even if only a little bit.

Thank you, Blizzard... thank you.

评论来自 Jathro

on 2013-07-15T11:35:21-05:00

We'll see. It may force some people to take a hard look at themselves, but for many it may just mean "oh well, I just won't do Proving Grounds anymore."

That said, I'm curious to see what rewards are available. Maybe that will help people improve their skills.

评论来自 Traynwreck

on 2013-07-15T11:38:57-05:00

This sounds awesome! For the first time in a long time I'm actually excited about something in WoW. ^_^

评论来自 SyntheticFrost

on 2013-07-15T11:40:12-05:00

While this is a welcome change that I plan on spending a lot of time with to try "group" content when playing solo, I have to wonder if including this will further hurt the community in the long run.

Whether Blizzard will ever publicly admit it or not, adding LFD/LFR hurt the general community of WoW. And people were much less likely to spend time teaching their fellow players. This may serve to amplify that. Players, instead of giving others the little tips and tricks of the class, will insist that newer players just go do Proving Grounds.

And as good as this'll be as a basic role teacher, I doubt very much the NPCs will whisper you with tips tailored to your class. And they shouldn't.

Players should put the research in, but most don't. And I feel like this won't make them want to.

评论来自 Pungrasso

on 2013-07-15T12:52:52-05:00

I think this will be a great way to learn the basics of an instance role, even barring what has already been mentioned about LFR in the comments above (I do agree to an extent that the system took a certain degree of training and accomplishment out of the game).

Say you're a healer in a smaller guild who has recently hit endgame and aren't very confident about your skill level yet- you want to join some guildies when they do 5-mans, but you aren't quite ready yet in your own mind. A tool like this would help to guide you to that point, by giving an array of scenarios that otherwise might not be covered by anyone just giving simple tips and tricks. And once you were set, you could go off on your merry way with your friends to slaughter the Scarlets or have adventures with Chen Stormstout. Or, say you're out of practice in healing-- hop in for a few rounds of Proving Grounds to get your feet wet, then go tackle the big stuff.

I don't anticipate this being a complete wikipedia on everything a tank/dps/healer will ever encounter, but I think it will be a nice way to get peoples' confidence up about their instance roles. I would hope that raiding guilds encourage practice not only with actual people in actual dungeons (or even groups of friends doing dailies), but the use of Proving Grounds to supplement the learning.

评论来自 lankybrit

on 2013-07-15T13:21:55-05:00

I think one more good thing about this is comparing different classes. I'll take the classes I play there and see which are best. It's going to be interesting to see how difficult they make these.

Cheers.

评论来自 Iceveiled

on 2013-07-15T13:36:07-05:00

I love this idea so much! Getting an alt to max level playing 1 spec, then trying to learn a new spec at max level with all those abilities is daunting. This is the perfect way to go in and practice without any negative penalties.

评论来自 fulk3n

on 2013-07-15T14:02:40-05:00

From the DPS video of gold rank.. it really doesn't seem challenging..

that might change after 30+ endless waves though...

self healing classes might have the advantage, like brawlers guild..

评论来自 Rystrave

on 2013-07-15T14:07:20-05:00

Oooo, this sounds great :D

评论来自 Varomar

on 2013-07-15T14:20:41-05:00

I love this idea as I can challenge myself and work on my skills without screwing people out of time/money. However, I do see this in /2 in the future:XRANDOMGUYX: LFM 1 Gold "healer/dps/tank" ilvl520+ for dated content PSTMight just be my cynicism...

评论来自 wrongheaded

on 2013-07-15T14:35:09-05:00

People keep saying that LFD and LFR hurt the WoW community, but I don't see how that's possible considering it was already a cesspool on day one. Maybe it's different if you stay within your gated community guild, but I'm not seeing a difference at all. Players on my servers are just as obnoxious today as they were back in vanilla, and this mythical 'server reputation' has never moderated their behavior because most people don't care. At least now I can see current content without begging in trade chat, and when someone inevitably flounces out of the group I can go fishing while I wait for a replacement. Plus in LFR there's no guild drama over who gets what drop, so I'm spared the hours of listening to other people &*!@# in Vent about how they really need the fort codex more than Xdêthhëâlzx and it's just SO UNFAIR.

Also it's frankly dumb to expect players to go 'do research' on their class for anything outside of progression raiding. Not only is this just a game, it's a game that requires zero research to hit the level cap. You can't explicitly train someone to assume they can figure things out on their own for 60-90 levels and then get frustrated when they're not interested in being study buddies all of a sudden at the end. Never mind that waiting until 90 to say "oh hey, this is how you heal/tank" is way, way too late. The reason why most people never do normal raids is because this part of the game is designed poorly, plain and simple. Want healers and tanks? Design a game that lets you heal or tank starting at level 1. Want raiders? Design a game that teaches you raid mechanics starting at level 10. Good game design involves teaching, and saying "go look it up online" (like they now do on the loading screen) is an admission of the designer's failure to convey information in-game.

评论来自 lankybrit

on 2013-07-15T15:12:36-05:00

From the DPS video of gold rank.. it really doesn't seem challenging..

that might change after 30+ endless waves though...

self healing classes might have the advantage, like brawlers guild..

Can't wait to try it on my Shadow Priest :)

Cheers.

评论来自 kintotech

on 2013-07-15T16:13:40-05:00

Oh wow, this looks like it'll be tons of fun. I tend to solo a lot, so something that'll really try to kick my butt'll be refreshing (and not having to wait in line like the Brawler's Guild).

评论来自 SyntheticFrost

on 2013-07-15T16:46:56-05:00

People keep saying that LFD and LFR hurt the WoW community, but I don't see how that's possible considering it was already a cesspool on day one. Maybe it's different if you stay within your gated community guild, but I'm not seeing a difference at all. Players on my servers are just as obnoxious today as they were back in vanilla, and this mythical 'server reputation' has never moderated their behavior because most people don't care. At least now I can see current content without begging in trade chat, and when someone inevitably flounces out of the group I can go fishing while I wait for a replacement. Plus in LFR there's no guild drama over who gets what drop, so I'm spared the hours of listening to other people &*!@# in Vent about how they really need the fort codex more than Xdêthhëâlzx and it's just SO UNFAIR./

I'm sorry to hear that, but that wasn't the case at all on my server. Trade Chat trolls who gained a bad rep hardly ever got taken to runs. And while I did have a guild, my server had a large community of "regular runners". People that just pugged stuff, but it really wasn't a pug because the community members just knew each other without having to be put on each other's friends list. We didn't need to.

Also it's frankly dumb to expect players to go 'do research' on their class for anything outside of progression raiding. Not only is this just a game, it's a game that requires zero research to hit the level cap. You can't explicitly train someone to assume they can figure things out on their own for 60-90 levels and then get frustrated when they're not interested in being study buddies all of a sudden at the end. Never mind that waiting until 90 to say "oh hey, this is how you heal/tank" is way, way too late. The reason why most people never do normal raids is because this part of the game is designed poorly, plain and simple. Want healers and tanks? Design a game that lets you heal or tank starting at level 1. Want raiders? Design a game that teaches you raid mechanics starting at level 10. Good game design involves teaching, and saying "go look it up online" (like they now do on the loading screen) is an admission of the designer's failure to convey information in-game.

The reason people never do normal raids is because they already see the content in a watered down fashion. Before LFR, if you wanted something better than the blues or occasional BoE raid drop off the AH, (which before Cata, was limited to about 1-2 pieces per armor type), you learned to raid. Maybe you went in as a undergeared dps, but you did what was called of you. As long as you made an effort, most people were willing to invite you back, because you were willing to learn. If you weren't, you were stuck in blues for that expansion.

As for "jumping into mechanics you've never seen before"... Each and every dungeon you run from lev. 1 to max lev introduces the mechanics you see in any given raid. They introduce you to them one at a time. And later level dungeons do a couple at a time. Raids are just the first time all that gets thrown together in a single boss encounter.

There is absolutely nothing in any raid in WoW, or any MMO for that matter, that you haven't been exposed to already at some point in your leveling career. That's what leveling in RPGS, and particularly MMOs, is. "The Training Level." If you get to max level and haven't learned what you needed to know, you weren't paying attention.

The bad design isn't the raids. It's the 5-mans being so trivial that you didn't notice that standing in stuff was bad.

评论来自 Esoth

on 2013-07-15T18:20:08-05:00

I made a premade monk and was not able to get into the proving grounds until I completed Anduin's quest line at the White Temple. Specifically, I completed the tasks, went with them to the gate, and handed in the quest at Seven Stars. I was not able to do this via the class trainer on my hunter (queue wouldn't actually pop) so I don't know if you can bypass all of this that way once it's working. But it certainly looks phased if you physically go there.

评论来自 murphmanfa

on 2013-07-15T20:44:05-05:00

I'm looking forward to this. I've got a tank who I'm leveling up, but I feel like I've fallen behind with it because I took a slower pace in later vanilla dungeons, and once I got to BC it was "go go go go go go go"- and I know that I won't be doing that once I hit 90. So now I'm 75-ish and I've just been doing DPS, and I am well aware that I need practice with tanking again, but I'm not willing to run randoms since I prefer having my sanity and peace of mind as intact as possible by the end of them.

评论来自 wrongheaded

on 2013-07-15T22:58:25-05:00

The reason people never do normal raids is because they already see the content in a watered down fashion. Before LFR, if you wanted something better than the blues or occasional BoE raid drop off the AH, (which before Cata, was limited to about 1-2 pieces per armor type), you learned to raid. Maybe you went in as a undergeared dps, but you did what was called of you. As long as you made an effort, most people were willing to invite you back, because you were willing to learn. If you weren't, you were stuck in blues for that expansion.

Except they introduced LFR because no one was raiding. You've got it backwards.

As for "jumping into mechanics you've never seen before"... Each and every dungeon you run from lev. 1 to max lev introduces the mechanics you see in any given raid. They introduce you to them one at a time. And later level dungeons do a couple at a time. Raids are just the first time all that gets thrown together in a single boss encounter.

There is absolutely nothing in any raid in WoW, or any MMO for that matter, that you haven't been exposed to already at some point in your leveling career. That's what leveling in RPGS, and particularly MMOs, is. "The Training Level." If you get to max level and haven't learned what you needed to know, you weren't paying attention.

Which dungeon has you grab a weapon off the rack and use it to CC adds? Which one teaches tank switching? Where's the dungeon version of the Heigan dance? They don't exist. Dungeons don't teach half of what you need to know as a raider, and that was true even back when dungeon runs involved lots of death. My very first run in Molten Core presented me with things - threat table resets, banishing Garr's adds, living bomb - I never encountered in 5-mans. But as I mentioned before, groups were hard to come by unless you were guilded. At least with LFD there are more people running dungeons now - better something than nothing.

Moreover, it's not enough to have the skills. The real issue is that until you've wiped a few times you often have no way of knowing what you're supposed to do. It's that or treat the game like a homework assignment. Part of why this is bad design is because you can't guarantee players will all arrive at the same answer, which causes conflict as tempers flare. Facing Durumu or Mel'jarak should not devolve into an argument about how to do the actual fight, yet that's where we are. Puzzling it out works fine in some single-player games, especially with save points. It's also great in collaborative tabletop RPGs where (unless your GM's a tool) you have time to discuss strategy and consider your plan of action. But a game like this, where time is limited, the content is repetitive, and it's hard to get everyone's schedules to match up often enough to make decent headway in progression? Terrible idea.

评论来自 SyntheticFrost

on 2013-07-15T23:27:40-05:00

As for "jumping into mechanics you've never seen before"... Each and every dungeon you run from lev. 1 to max lev introduces the mechanics you see in any given raid. They introduce you to them one at a time. And later level dungeons do a couple at a time. Raids are just the first time all that gets thrown together in a single boss encounter.

There is absolutely nothing in any raid in WoW, or any MMO for that matter, that you haven't been exposed to already at some point in your leveling career. That's what leveling in RPGS, and particularly MMOs, is. "The Training Level." If you get to max level and haven't learned what you needed to know, you weren't paying attention.

Which dungeon has you grab a weapon off the rack and use it to CC adds?

Off the top of my head, BC's Bot and Slabs, Wrath's ToC,..

Where's the dungeon version of the Heigan dance?

You never experienced bad stuff on the ground prior to level 60? All that did was put stuff on the ground that forced you to move. But if you want that specifically.... a whole lot of classic mobs and BC mobs would put fire or poison on the ground that'd kill you very quickly if they weren't CC'd. If you want a more recent example of things you couldn't CC, the revamped ZG heroic venom maze boss and the ogre boss that spun fire on the ground in Deadmines in Cata.

They don't exist. Dungeons don't teach half of what you need to know as a raider, and that was true even back when dungeon runs involved lots of death. My very first run in Molten Core presented me with things - threat table resets, banishing Garr's adds, living bomb - I never encountered in 5-mans.

Dire Maul and Maradon don't ring a bell?

But as I mentioned before, groups were hard to come by unless you were guilded. At least with LFD there are more people running dungeons now - better something than nothing.

Moreover, it's not enough to have the skills. The real issue is that until you've wiped a few times you often have no way of knowing what you're supposed to do. It's that or treat the game like a homework assignment. Part of why this is bad design is because you can't guarantee players will all arrive at the same answer, which causes conflict as tempers flare. Facing Durumu or Mel'jarak should not devolve into an argument about how to do the actual fight, yet that's where we are.

Honestly, that's the APPEAL of raiding. Contrary to what the masses would have you believe, the bosses were DESIGNED to have more than one way to kill them. It all depends on your group's skill, competence, and make-up. If you're fighting about how to down a boss after a few wipes, leave, you're either doing your group, or yourself, a big favor. We're supposed to come to a conclusion as a group. It's not Blizzard's fault we whine like babies when the gear doesn't automatically drop in our laps.

Puzzling it out works fine in some single-player games, especially with save points. It's also great in collaborative tabletop RPGs where (unless your GM's a tool) you have time to discuss strategy and consider your plan of action. But a game like this, where time is limited, the content is repetitive, and it's hard to get everyone's schedules to match up often enough to make decent headway in progression? Terrible idea.

It's an MMO, you're SUPPOSED to put a lot of time into it. If you don't have the time, this isn't the genre for you.

评论来自 AnrDaemon

on 2013-07-16T00:05:12-05:00

Anyone noticed a joke in that it will not be available for characters below level 90?... Also, if there will be any "rewards" other than increased personal skill, I call yet another failure of Blizzard.

P.S.Massively multiplayer online single-player game.

评论来自 TheWheatOne

on 2013-07-16T01:29:37-05:00

Anyone noticed a joke in that it will not be available for characters below level 90?... Also, if there will be any "rewards" other than increased personal skill, I call yet another failure of Blizzard.